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Author: Doug Blair

  • Insure-Tech vs. TPA: Who’s Winning the Claims Talent War?

    By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

    There’s a talent competition happening inside the P&C claims ecosystem that most traditional organizations aren’t taking seriously enough — and the insure-tech firms are quietly winning it.

    Over the past three to four years, a new category of employer has entered the claims talent market: technology companies purpose-built for the insurance claims process. AI-assisted adjudication platforms. Digital IME coordination networks. Automated bill review and cost containment SaaS providers. Claims workflow and analytics companies. These organizations are growing fast, funded well, and actively recruiting from the same TPA and carrier benches that traditional claims organizations have relied on for decades.

    The result is a talent war that most hiring leaders in traditional claims operations haven’t fully registered yet. And the insure-tech side is winning more of these conversations than you might expect.

    What Insure-Tech Is Offering

    To understand why experienced claims professionals are moving toward technology companies, you have to understand what those companies are offering — and it’s not always about compensation.

    Mission and momentum. Senior claims leaders who have spent 20 years inside large TPA or carrier operations often feel the weight of organizational inertia. Established processes, legacy platforms, complex approval chains, and risk-averse cultures can make meaningful change feel slow. Insure-tech firms offer the opposite: the chance to build something, to see direct impact, and to work in an environment where claims expertise is treated as a competitive advantage rather than a cost center.

    Equity and upside. For the right candidate at the right stage of a company’s growth, equity participation represents a financial opportunity that a salary increase at an established TPA cannot replicate. Not every insure-tech firm will generate a meaningful return, but the possibility is real enough to factor into the calculus for executives who are already financially secure and looking for a different kind of reward.

    Title and scope. A Director of Claims Operations at a large TPA may oversee a defined function within a complex hierarchy. At a growth-stage claims technology company, that same person might carry a VP or Chief Claims Officer title with direct input into product development, client strategy, and company direction. The scope is broader, the visibility is higher, and the role feels more central to the organization’s success.

    What Traditional Claims Organizations Still Have

    The talent competition isn’t one-sided. TPAs, regional carriers, IME networks, and bill review organizations retain significant advantages — but they need to articulate them more deliberately than they currently do.

    Scale and stability. Insure-tech firms carry real risk. Many won’t survive. The ones that do will look different in three years than they do today. Experienced claims leaders with families, mortgages, and retirement timelines weigh that uncertainty carefully. A VP-level role at an established TPA with a strong carrier book and 30-year track record represents something an early-stage tech company cannot offer: security.

    Depth of craft. The P&C claims world is one where expertise compounds over time. The opportunity to run a sophisticated, high-volume claims operation — managing complex coverage questions, multi-jurisdiction regulatory requirements, and large-loss files — is genuinely rare. Candidates who care about mastery of the craft, not just title and equity, often find that the most intellectually challenging work still lives inside traditional claims organizations.

    Career trajectory in a known landscape. The path from Director to VP to SVP to CCO is well-defined inside established claims organizations. Mentorship structures exist. Networks are deep. The industry relationships built inside a large TPA or carrier have enduring value across the entire claims ecosystem — including, eventually, in insure-tech companies that need those relationships to sell and scale.

    What the Talent War Means for Hiring Leaders

    If you run a TPA, an IME company, a medical case management network, or a claims operation at a regional carrier, the insure-tech competition for your talent is not theoretical. It’s already happening in your mid-management ranks, and it’s starting to reach Director and VP levels.

    The organizations navigating this well are doing a few things differently.

    They’re having retention conversations proactively. Not waiting for a resignation letter to understand why a high-performing Director of Claims might be entertaining an insure-tech conversation. The most effective retention happens before an offer is made — when there’s still time to address the underlying motivation.

    They’re expanding what they offer beyond compensation. Title, scope, visibility, and the chance to lead meaningful change inside the organization are legitimate retention tools. Claims leaders who feel like they’re building something — not just maintaining something — are less susceptible to insure-tech recruiting.

    They’re moving faster on searches. In a market where insure-tech firms move quickly and make fast decisions, traditional organizations that run 120-day hiring processes are losing candidates to offers that came in at week six. Speed is now a competitive variable in claims talent acquisition.

    What It Means for Candidates

    If you’re a senior claims leader currently weighing an insure-tech opportunity against a traditional claims role, a few questions are worth sitting with:

    • What stage is the company at, and what does the realistic exit timeline look like for the equity to have value?
    • Who leads the claims function today, and what’s the actual depth of claims expertise on the leadership team?
    • Is the insure-tech role built around your expertise, or does it require you to become someone different?
    • If the company doesn’t make it, what does your resume look like on the other side?

    Neither path is universally right. The right answer depends on where you are in your career, what you’re optimizing for, and what kind of work you want to be doing in five years. The best conversations I have with senior claims candidates are the ones where we work through that framework honestly — without a predetermined outcome.

    BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. Whether you’re a hiring leader navigating the talent competition or a candidate weighing your options, we work both sides of this market.

  • Seats vs. Fees: Making the Right Call for Claims Leadership Hires

    By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

    Every claims organization eventually faces the same budget conversation: do we invest in internal recruiting tools — LinkedIn seats, job board subscriptions, an ATS — or do we pay a retained search fee when we need a senior hire? The honest answer is that neither is universally right. But in the P&C claims ecosystem, the decision often gets framed the wrong way, and it costs organizations time and money they didn’t budget for.

    Here’s a straightforward breakdown of both models — what each delivers, where each falls short, and how to think about the decision for the kind of specialized leadership roles that define this industry.

    What You’re Actually Buying with Internal Tools

    When a TPA or claims operation builds out internal recruiting capability — LinkedIn Recruiter seats, Indeed or ZipRecruiter postings, an ATS to manage applicants — they’re making a bet on volume efficiency. The logic is sound for certain categories of hiring: claims coordinators, administrative roles, junior adjusters, entry-level case managers. These are roles where the talent pool is broader, candidate response rates are reasonable, and the cost of a slower search or a wrong hire is manageable.

    Internal tools compound value over time when your team is disciplined about using them. A recruiter who lives in LinkedIn daily, builds pipelines for recurring roles, and actively networks within the claims community can eventually develop real capability. The cost per hire on coordinator and analyst-level roles can be quite low once the infrastructure is in place.

    The limitation shows up at the VP and Director level — which is where the stakes are highest and the talent pool is smallest.

    What You’re Actually Buying with a Retained Search Firm

    A retained search fee — typically structured as a project initiation payment credited against a placement fee at hire — looks expensive on a line item. At 20% of base compensation for a VP of Claims making $175,000, you’re writing a meaningful check. It’s worth understanding what that check actually buys.

    Network depth. A firm that works exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem has relationships with senior professionals who are not on job boards and not responding to cold InMails. They’re reached through trusted, direct conversations between people who already know each other. That access doesn’t exist in a LinkedIn seat.

    Speed. A retained firm working from a warm network produces a qualified shortlist in weeks, not months. For a TPA with an open VP of Claims seat, that speed has direct financial value — in avoided productivity loss, in protected carrier relationships, and in the avoided cost of asking someone to stretch beyond their role while the search drags on.

    Vetting rigor. A retained process means the firm has skin in the game from day one. They’re not sending volume hoping something sticks — they’re conducting a thorough search and standing behind the outcome. BKG’s 12-month replacement guarantee reflects that commitment. If the placed executive departs or is terminated for performance reasons within the first year, we conduct a full replacement search at no additional fee.

    Reduced mis-hire risk. This is the factor that gets underweighted most consistently. A VP-level mis-hire in claims — accounting for severance, lost productivity, downstream vendor and carrier relationship impact, and the cost of a second search — typically runs well into six figures. The retained fee paid to avoid that outcome is almost always the better investment.

    The Side-by-Side for Claims Leadership Roles

    The Decision Framework

    The question isn’t really “LinkedIn or recruiter.” It’s “for this specific role, in this specific market, what approach gives me the best outcome at the lowest total cost?”

    For most claims organizations, the answer looks like this:

    – Use internal tools for roles where the talent pool is broad enough that active candidate outreach will surface qualified people in a reasonable timeframe. Coordinator, analyst, junior adjuster, and administrative roles generally fit here.

    – Engage a retained firm for Director, VP, and C-suite claims roles — especially in specialized functions like IME operations, medical case management, bill review leadership, or claims technology. These are the roles where the talent pool is narrow, passive candidates dominate, and the cost of getting it wrong is too high to absorb.

    The cleanest way to frame it: if the wrong hire in this role would keep you up at night, it’s a retained search. If it’s a role you could backfill in 60 days without major disruption, internal tools can reasonably handle it.

    A Note on Hybrid Strategies

    Most claims organizations that get this right don’t choose one model or the other — they run both deliberately. Internal tools handle the recurring, higher-volume hiring that every operation needs. A retained partner handles the handful of leadership searches per year where access, speed, and accuracy all matter.

    The firms that struggle are the ones that try to use internal tools for everything to avoid search fees — and end up with VP-level roles open for five months, a stretched team, and a hire they’re not fully confident in. The fee they avoided often costs more than the one they paid.

    BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. If you’re deciding how to approach your next claims leadership hire, we’re happy to walk through the options honestly.

  • The Always-On Bench: A Better Model for Claims Leadership Continuity

    By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

    Here’s a question most claims organizations never ask until it’s too late: what would happen if your VP of Claims gave notice tomorrow?

    Not a hypothetical crisis — a real one. The announcement comes on a Tuesday morning. By Wednesday you’re in triage, and by Friday you’re realizing that the institutional knowledge that person carried wasn’t documented anywhere. The search that follows will take three to five months if everything goes well. In the meantime, someone is stretching to cover a role they weren’t built for, carrier relationships are getting managed on autopilot, and your claims outcomes are quietly drifting.

    Most organizations in the P&C claims ecosystem treat executive hiring as a reactive event. A vacancy opens, a search begins, a hire is made, and the process ends. That model made sense in a more stable talent environment. It doesn’t hold up anymore. The bench is thin, the talent pool is specialized, and the organizations that wait until they have an open seat are consistently behind the ones that don’t.

    There’s a better model. I call it the Always-On Bench — and it’s one of the most valuable things a claims organization can build.

    What the Always-On Bench Actually Is

    The concept is straightforward: instead of starting a search when you have a vacancy, you maintain a live, curated picture of the senior claims talent in your market — before you need them.

    That doesn’t mean keeping a list of names in a spreadsheet. It means having active, ongoing awareness of who is performing well at competing TPAs, who is two years into a role and might be open to the right conversation, who just led a strong claims transformation at a regional carrier, and who in your network is positioned to step into a Director or VP role if the opportunity presented itself correctly.

    For organizations that engage BKG on a retained basis, this is part of what we bring. We maintain a database of more than 60,000 professionals in the P&C claims ecosystem. We’re in regular contact with senior claims leaders who aren’t advertising that they’re open to a move — because the best candidates never are. When a client vacancy opens, we’re not starting from zero. We’re starting from a warm pool of vetted relationships.

    But the model goes further than database access.

    Flipping the Sequence

    Traditional executive search follows a fixed sequence: a seat opens, a job description gets written, a recruiter is engaged, a search begins. Every decision is made in response to a vacancy.

    The Always-On Bench flips that sequence. Instead of writing a job description in response to a departure, the most strategic claims organizations are asking a different set of questions on a rolling basis:

    • Where are we most vulnerable if a key person leaves in the next 12 months?
    • What does the next generation of claims leadership look like inside our organization?
    • Who in the external market could accelerate our strategy — not just fill a role?

    When you answer those questions before a vacancy exists, your hiring decisions become strategic instead of reactive. You’re not replacing someone under pressure. You’re selecting from a curated set of relationships that have already been identified, qualified, and in some cases, cultivated over months.

    The difference in outcome is substantial. Time-to-hire compresses. Candidate quality improves. And the mis-hire rate drops — because you’re not making a $300,000 decision in 90 days under pressure.

    Who This Model Fits

    The Always-On Bench is most valuable for claims organizations where leadership continuity is tied directly to performance outcomes — which, in the P&C claims world, is most of them.

    TPAs are the clearest fit. When a VP of Claims or Director of Operations leaves a TPA, the impact is felt immediately across carrier relationships, adjuster performance, and file quality. There’s no margin for a prolonged search when the business is built on execution. Having a pre-qualified bench for those roles is not a luxury — it’s risk management.

    IME and medical management companies face a similar dynamic. The leadership roles that drive quality, compliance, and client retention are narrow and specialized. The talent pool is small. Proactive relationship-building is often the only way to access the best candidates before a competitor does.

    Regional carriers and MGAs with dedicated claims operations benefit from the same thinking, particularly as they navigate the technology transition. The leaders who can run a claims operation and drive a platform migration simultaneously are rare. Identifying them before you need them is worth the effort.

    The Practical Step Forward

    You don’t have to implement a full talent strategy overhaul to start benefiting from this model. The most practical entry point is a simple conversation: where are your leadership vulnerabilities in claims right now, and which roles would hurt most if they went open tomorrow?

    That conversation — which we have with clients regularly — almost always surfaces two or three roles that deserve proactive attention. From there, it’s a matter of building awareness in the right talent pools before urgency forces a compromised decision.

    The claims talent market isn’t getting easier. The organizations that build their bench before they need it will consistently outperform the ones that don’t.

    BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. If you’d like to think through your claims leadership bench, let’s talk.

  • The Talent Crisis Nobody in Claims Is Talking About

    By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

    It hits between meetings, usually. Another retirement email. Another resignation letter from a senior adjuster who’s “going to explore options.” Another requisition sitting unapproved because nobody agrees on what the role should actually look like anymore. If you run a TPA, an IME company, a medical case management network, or a claims operation at a regional carrier, you already know this feeling. The talent pipeline that sustained this industry for 30 years is running thin — and the organizations that aren’t paying attention will feel it before they see it coming.

    This is the talent crisis in the P&C claims ecosystem. It doesn’t get the headlines that underwriting or actuarial shortages do. But it’s just as real, and in some corners of claims, it’s already here.

    Act One: The Great Exit

    The claims world built its leadership bench the hard way — through years of field experience, mentorship, and institutional knowledge that doesn’t transfer through a job description. A VP of Claims at a mid-sized TPA didn’t become effective by reading a manual. They became effective by handling complex files, navigating difficult vendors, managing carrier relationships under pressure, and learning what reserve discipline actually looks like when it’s stress-tested.

    That generation is leaving. Retirements are accelerating across adjusting, case management, utilization review, and TPA operations. And unlike some industries where experienced talent can be replaced with a fast learner and a training program, claims leadership requires a depth of contextual knowledge that takes years to build. When a 25-year Director of Claims walks out the door, they take with them relationships, judgment, and pattern recognition that no onboarding checklist replaces.

    The bench behind them is thinner than most organizations want to admit.

    Act Two: The Claims Tech Disruption

    While succession planning drags on, automation, AI triage, and advanced analytics are being written into nearly every function. Bill review, utilization management, IME scheduling, and first-notice-of-loss handling are all becoming more technology-dependent — and the job descriptions are mutating accordingly.

    The ideal Director of Claims Operations at a modern TPA now needs to understand AI-assisted adjudication workflows, data integrity across platforms, and vendor performance analytics, in addition to the traditional claims fundamentals. That’s a different profile than what the industry hired a decade ago, and the talent pool that meets both criteria — seasoned claims expertise plus technology fluency — is genuinely small.

    Organizations that try to hire purely from the “experienced claims professional” pool will miss the tech evolution. Those that chase pure tech talent will hire people who don’t understand how claims actually work on the ground. The winning hire sits at the intersection, and that person is in high demand.

    Act Three: The Insure-Tech Drain

    Meanwhile, claims technology companies — SaaS platforms, AI-driven triage vendors, managed care networks — are actively recruiting from the same TPA and carrier benches that traditional organizations are trying to protect. They move faster, often pay differently, and offer the appeal of building something new rather than managing something established.

    The result is a quiet but real drain. Senior claims professionals with technology comfort and strategic thinking — exactly the people every TPA and carrier wants as their next VP or Director — are increasingly fielding calls from insure-tech firms that didn’t exist five years ago. Traditional organizations aren’t just competing with each other for this talent anymore. They’re competing with an entirely different type of employer.

    What It Means for Hiring Leaders

    The claims talent crisis is not an HR problem. It’s a business continuity problem. Organizations that treat executive hiring as a reactive process — post a requisition when a seat opens, review whoever applies, make a decision — are already behind.

    The organizations navigating this well are doing a few things differently. They’re mapping their succession vulnerabilities before they become vacancies. They’re actively building relationships with senior claims professionals who aren’t looking yet but could be open to the right conversation. And they’re working with recruiting partners who already know the ecosystem — who can identify the right candidate profile before it becomes an emergency search.

    That last part matters more than most hiring leaders acknowledge. In a talent pool this specialized, the difference between a three-month search and a six-month search often comes down to who your recruiter already knows and who they can reach.

    The Script Doesn’t Have to Write Itself

    The talent crisis in P&C claims is real, but it’s not inevitable for every organization. The ones that plan ahead — that treat leadership hiring as a strategic function rather than an administrative one — will be the ones that build durable, high-performing claims teams while their competitors scramble to backfill.

    At The Blair Kenner Group, we work exclusively inside this ecosystem. We know the companies, the roles, and the professionals who can move the needle. When the retirement email lands or the resignation comes in, we’d rather you already have a conversation in progress than be starting from zero.

    BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. Let’s talk before the vacancy is urgent.

  • Confessions of a Claims Headhunter

    By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

    Confession: the best executive candidates in the P&C claims world rarely “wow” anyone in the first 30 seconds. They win in the quiet, consistent details — the kind that only surface once the small talk ends and the real work begins. After 30 years inside this industry, I’ve sat across from hundreds of claims leaders, and the pattern never changes. The ones who get hired aren’t the loudest in the room. They’re the ones who own their results, know their numbers, and can explain what they actually did — not just what happened on their watch.

    Here’s what I’ve learned.

    VP-Level and Above: Outcomes, Not Org Charts

    In C-suite and VP searches — think VP of Claims, Chief Claims Officer, SVP of TPA Operations — the strongest candidates do something deceptively simple: they talk about outcomes, not activities.

    They don’t just say they “led a claims transformation.” They can tell you how severity trends shifted, how reserve accuracy improved quarter-over-quarter, and how they brought skeptical adjusters along for the ride when a new platform rolled out. They know their combined ratios. They know their loss adjustment expense trends. And they can walk you from the problem to the decision to the result without a PowerPoint in sight.

    The ones who don’t advance? They stay stuck at the “managed a team of 40” level — as if headcount were an accomplishment rather than a starting point. In the claims ecosystem, that level of answer gets you screened out fast. Hiring executives in this space have seen too much to be impressed by titles alone.

    Claims Operations and TPA Leadership: Process Is Half the Story

    In claims operations roles — Directors of Operations at TPAs, VP of Field Claims, Regional Claims Managers — the candidates who stand out understand that building a process and making it stick are two different jobs.

    The ones who get offers talk about behavior change. They describe how they worked alongside adjusters, IME coordinators, or nurse case managers to adopt new workflows — not just how they “implemented” them. They can name the resistance they ran into and what they did about it. They know that a new claims platform nobody uses is just expensive shelfware.

    The candidates who stumble? They either blame “the field” for everything or can’t describe a single moment where they adapted their approach to real-world pushback. In a business where the margin lives in execution, that’s a red flag.

    Medical Management and Cost Containment: The Numbers Have to Be Real

    In medical case management, IME operations, and bill review leadership, the best candidates come in with specific numbers — and they can defend them.

    They know their review acceptance rates. They know what utilization review saved per claim cycle. They can describe the difference between a well-run Independent Medical Examination program and a rubber-stamp operation, and they’ve been on both sides. When I ask about a process improvement they led, they don’t give me a paragraph of soft language — they give me a before-and-after.

    The candidates who lose the room are the ones who rely on credential titles and tenure without connecting either to actual outcomes. Longevity in this industry is respected, but it’s not a substitute for results.

    Claims Technology: Complexity Has to Sound Simple

    For technology leadership roles inside claims organizations — VP of Claims Systems, Director of Claims Technology at a carrier or MGA, or a similar role at a claims SaaS company — the standard is different but the principle is the same.

    Top candidates can explain a legacy claims platform migration, an AI triage integration, or a document automation rollout in plain English. They translate complexity without dumbing it down. When you ask how they handled user adoption, they have a story with texture — not a slide deck summary.

    The ones who don’t make it weaponize jargon. Every sentence becomes a buzzword salad, and the technical depth never comes. In my experience, that usually means the real work happened somewhere else.

    The Real Confession

    After 30 years in this industry and more executive searches than I can count, the secret to finding the right claims leader isn’t a magic questionnaire or a clever assessment tool. It’s a disciplined ear for three things: who owns their results, who can tell a clear story under pressure, and who respects the complexity of this business enough to make it understandable.

    The P&C claims ecosystem is not a forgiving place to fake it. The best candidates know that — and it shows in every conversation.

    At The Blair Kenner Group, that’s the bar we hold. It’s also the bar your next hire should clear.

    BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. If you’re building a leadership team or looking for your next move, let’s talk.

  • Why P&C Claims Leaders Are Harder to Hire Than Ever

    Executive hiring in claims has changed

    For organizations across the property and casualty claims ecosystem, hiring proven leadership is no longer a routine recruiting exercise. The strongest candidates are often deeply embedded in critical roles, selective about change, and cautious about opportunities that do not align with their long-term goals. At the same time, employers need leaders who can improve operations, strengthen teams, and navigate a market defined by complexity, speed, and accountability.

    That is where a focused executive search process matters. The Blair Kenner Group, LLC helps organizations identify and attract high-impact talent while also helping experienced professionals evaluate the right next step with discretion and clarity. Built for claims and proven in the field, the firm brings industry knowledge that helps both sides move forward with confidence.

    Why specialization matters

    Executive recruiting is most effective when the search partner understands the language, pressures, and performance expectations of the industry. In claims, leadership decisions affect service quality, compliance, team stability, client relationships, and financial outcomes. A generalist approach can miss the operational nuance that separates a capable candidate from the right one.

    • Leaders must balance technical expertise with people leadership.
    • Organizations need candidates who can step into high-trust roles quickly.
    • Confidentiality is often essential for both employers and candidates.
    • The best talent is frequently passive and requires a strategic outreach approach.

    The Blair Kenner Group focuses on these realities. With deep familiarity across carriers, TPAs, and claims-adjacent organizations, the firm is positioned to identify leaders who fit the role, the business, and the moment.

    What clients and candidates need today

    Hiring companies want more than resumes. They want insight into the market, honest candidate evaluation, and a search process that protects their brand while producing results. Candidates want the same level of professionalism: clear communication, thoughtful opportunity alignment, and a partner who understands the stakes of a career move.

    The best executive search outcomes happen when industry knowledge, disciplined process, and trusted relationships come together.

    That combination is central to how The Blair Kenner Group serves the market. Whether supporting an organization launching a confidential search or an executive exploring a strategic transition, the goal is the same: create strong matches that last.

    How BKG creates value

    • Retained executive search for leadership and specialized roles.
    • Advanced candidate sourcing to reach qualified professionals beyond active applicants.
    • Employer brand insight to strengthen positioning in a competitive talent market.
    • Executive career services for professionals navigating important career decisions.

    By combining search discipline with direct industry perspective, the firm helps reduce friction in the hiring process and improve confidence in the final decision. That is especially important in a sector where leadership quality can influence performance across entire teams and business units.

    Looking ahead

    As the claims industry continues to evolve, organizations will need leaders who can adapt, communicate, and execute under pressure. Candidates will continue to seek opportunities that offer both challenge and fit. The firms that succeed in this environment will be the ones that approach hiring strategically rather than reactively.

    The Blair Kenner Group, LLC was built to support that work. For organizations seeking leadership talent and for professionals considering what comes next, BKG offers a focused, experienced approach grounded in the realities of the claims industry.